


walking in the sun

by erebones



Series: run me like a river [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Falling In Love, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Virginity, chirrut is a little bit of a hoe, demisexual baze, temple beebs, virginity is a social construct but y'know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-20
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-10-21 09:02:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10682073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: A sequel to "like a river," from Baze's perspective. He kinda wants to bang Chirrut, but he isn't really sure how to go about it...Well I've blown so many chances that IAin't gonna blow this chance with youI've been losing long enough to knowWhen I finally wonAnd even a blind man can tellWhen he's walking in the sun—Walking in the Sun, PANG!





	walking in the sun

When the last dregs of the evening meal have been cleared away, Baze finishes his duties in the kitchen and retires early to the room he shares with Chirrut. His feet still aren’t used to the way—if he lets his mind wander, as it is wont to do in the gloaming hours, he will often find himself in the acolyte dormitories without meaning to. 

They were moved to new quarters just a few days ago, when Chirrut completed the trials to enter the sixth duan. Right on Baze’s heels, as always. This room is a little more spacious than before, intended for two junior guardians to share comfortably, with an adjoining private washroom and a tiny balcony overlooking the gardens. A little perk from Master F’lon, Baze thinks, though the man will not admit to it. He’s always had a soft spot for Chirrut.

The main room is empty when Baze lets himself in. Chirrut is still at evening prayers, then. Baze would be there, too, if his turn on the kitchen roster had not kept him away. To make up for the lack, he performs his own private ritual alone. With succinct motions, he strips to the waist and enters the washroom, pumping fresh, scintillatingly cold water from the underwater springs below the Temple. He washes his face at the basin, and his hands, throat, under his arms. Then his feet and ankles, rinsing away the day’s dust. When he is dry he returns to the main room and unfurls his reed mat, kept neatly on its rack in the corner. Chirrut’s sits beside it, noticeably cracked and ragged at the edges where his restless fingers have plucked the fibers free of their weft. 

Baze tries not to think of Chirrut when he prays, but it’s difficult. Chirrut fills his thoughts all the time nowadays. Baze shuts his eyes and sees Chirrut’s smile, the flash of white teeth, his cloudy blue eyes crinkled up with laughter. His heart drums a double-beat inside his chest and he puts a hand to it instinctively, seeking to calm it. 

_I am one with the Force. The Force is with me._

Chirrut’s favorite mantra. It’s one of the first prayers taught to the young novitiates, the beginning of a larger pattern that is learned piece by piece until the full cycle is memorized for advancement to the first duan. Baze could recite the entire thing in his sleep if he wished, but it’s the first short stanza that sticks to the roof of his mouth tonight. It fills him with calm and comfort, like a warm blanket, like Chirrut’s body sprawled over his in a slumberous tangle.

_I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me._

It makes him feel young again, young and foolish—he knows he has nowhere near the age and wisdom of most full-fledged Guardians in service to the Whills, but sometimes the carefree days of his youth seem so far away. They didn’t seem carefree then, of course. There was studying and lessons and constant training, the rigorous dawn-to-dusk life of all the acolytes of the Temple. All very pressing concerns to a ten or twelve or fourteen-year-old, but Baze thinks he would happily trade those worries for a day or two, for his own seem insurmountable in comparison. 

_The Force is with me. I am one with the Force._

For instance… Chirrut. He has always been a fixed point in Baze’s life, always bringing more trouble than one boy should be able to, but Baze is learning that he would prefer those mischievous pranks to the tumult he now carries in his heart. Not that Chirrut has done anything wrong—of course not. He doesn’t think Chirrut could ever do anything to truly alienate him.

_All these questions and no answers. Have I… offended you?_

_Baze. There isn’t anything you could do in a lifetime of trying that could offend me._

He smiles faintly at the memory. The sentiment is mutual, a hundredfold. Strange, then, that it’s still so difficult to speak his mind. A great weight has been lifted from his heart since the day in the stairwell some weeks ago, listening to the monsoon lash the Temple spires like a thousand whips as they stammered and spilled their souls to each other. But Baze finds himself floundering, now, more comfortable with prayer and meditation than matters of the flesh, and Baze has not dared ask any of the elders for advice. Nor his friends, though the words have sometimes risen to his lips during free hours, only to trip and slide down the back of his tongue, unspoken. It is such a private thing, his longing. He has sheltered it for so long, kept it close to his breast, that he doesn’t know what is permissible and what is not. 

Today in the baths, he overheard some friendly teasing among a group of acolytes a few years his junior. He has mentored a few of them, but they are not strictly his _friends_ , and so he made his ablutions alone while they splashed and laughed and chattered nearby, heedless and cheerful as the young so often are. Baze was the only guardian present, and did not feel it prudent to interrupt them even when their talk turned… crude. That, and he was desperate for knowledge of any kind, even the gossipy sort passed between children. 

He has heard such things before, he supposes, only he never paid it any attention. But it’s hard to ignore it when he has such vivid, startling dreams that leave him hot and uncomfortable come morning; hard to ignore it when he catches glimpses of Chirrut sometimes, a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, and feels his heart thud heavy in his chest and his tongue go dry inside his mouth. He wants, _craves_ Chirrut in a way he never has before. 

_I am one with the Force… one with Chirrut_. No, that isn’t right. He shuts his eyes tighter, fingers turned to fists on his knees instead of palms open to the sky. It’s a heady thought, and a dangerous one. He cannot stray from the patterns of his faith, and yet he cannot stray from Chirrut, either. There must be a way for the two to work in tandem, but if there is such a way he has not discovered it. 

He is so focused on his internal turmoil that he doesn’t hear the latch being lifted or the slow sift of the wooden door drifting back into place on its well-oiled hinges. It’s the _smell_ of Chirrut, of all things, that brings him back to the real world: incense from evening prayers, smoky and spicy all at once, mingling with kyber dust and stale sweat from the day’s labors. Baze’s eyes fly open and his breath catches in his throat as if it were stoppered with a cork. 

Chirrut is undressing for bed. Apparently believing Baze to be meditating—which he is, sort of, not really—he ignores him entirely for the time being, removing his outer robes and hanging them up to air. Beneath, his rust-orange tunic and trousers are damp and clinging with old sweat, and he steps out of them easily, unselfconscious, dropping them straight into the hamper for washing. And under that is… well, nothing. Baze shuts his eyes again and swallows. 

Chirrut is terrifyingly quiet when he wishes to be, and Baze only knows that he’s moved past him to the washroom because of the warm draft of air against his cheek, stirred by Chirrut’s passing. Baze licks his lips and tries not to listen. And fails. Chirrut hasn’t closed the curtain all the way and he can hear everything perfectly—running water, splashing, the occasional hiss at the bitterly cold temperature. In spite of himself, Baze smiles.

“You could have heated it up on the fire, you know,” he says, pitching his voice just a little louder. The splashing stops, then resumes with a little less vigor. 

“I thought you were meditating.”

“I was trying,” Baze admits. He shakes out the tension in his hands and rubs his eyes, posture slumping just a little. He’ll get up in a minute or two, prepare for bed. 

Behind him, Chirrut finishes washing and returns to the main room. He is dressed again, thank the Force, though not much—his nightshirt is old and faded, worn thin under the arms and at the neck, and its hem, once long enough to reach his knobbly knees, hits him now at mid-thigh. He moves to stand in front of Baze, his long legs dusted with hair all the way down to his ankles. His mouth waters. 

“Does something trouble you?” Chirrut asks quietly. His pale eyes are vacant but he tilts his head toward him nevertheless, down and slightly to one side so as to hear him better. Baze reaches out and curls his hand around one slim ankle, and Chirrut huffs a laugh. “Baze…”

“It’s nothing,” Baze says, and when Chirrut scoffs, amends, “nothing _serious_.”

“Is that so? Is that why the room felt so dim and depressing when I walked in?” Chirrut hunkers down and reaches out, palms to Baze’s face. There’s no use in rearranging his features to hide his thoughts, so he doesn’t try. Instead he closes his eyes and leans in, enjoying the soft intimacy of Chirrut’s fingertips moving gently on his cheeks and brow, following his nose to the corners of his mouth. They stretch in an instinctive smile, and Chirrut makes a pleased sound. “There we are. Hello.”

“Hello.” It’s nonsensical, but it makes Chirrut smile. “I’m sorry I missed evening prayers.”

“So am I,” Chirrut says matter-of-factly. He settles down cross-legged on the floor, close enough that their knees touch, and drops his hands to Baze’s calves. “Master F’lon said my recitation was particularly invigorating today.” 

He elaborates, and Baze listens, content to fall into this comfortable, familiar pattern. He watches Chirrut’s hands move like birds, excitement creasing his face, and holds tightly to the urge to lean forward and kiss him, a live coal held dearly in the palm of his hand. 

“I’m afraid dish duty wasn’t nearly as exciting,” he says when Chirrut prompts him. “Next time I will make sure I can be there when you lead prayers.”

“Good,” Chirrut says, satisfied. “Now will you tell me what troubles you?”

Baze sighs. “It’s not… I don’t understand it all yet.”

“Then let me help you understand, if I can. Or we can figure it out together.” Chirrut slides his hands up his thighs a short ways. At any other time they might be preparing to meditate together, balancing their focus against each other, but tonight Chirrut’s touch lights a spark underneath his skin and Baze shivers. 

“Do you remember,” he begins haltingly, “the day it rained?”

“No! It was so long ago, I can’t recall,” Chirrut says, infusing his voice with drama. When Baze doesn’t laugh, he grimaces and gives his leg a gentle squeeze. “Sorry. Yes, my dear, I remember.”

The _my dear_ gives him courage even if nothing else does. “Sometimes when we kiss… I feel something. A wanting. But I don’t know if you feel the same thing, and I don’t want to pursue it if you would rather not. I love you,” he adds, as if that wasn’t clear. “But this is a different thing. I mean, they’re joined, I think, but they are separate too.”

“Baze,” Chirrut says, nose wrinkled, “Are you talking about… sex?”

“Yes,” Baze mutters.

A peal of laughter lights up the room like a torch, and then Chirrut slaps both hands over his mouth, eyes wide. Baze isn’t sure whether to be offended or not so he says nothing. “Baze! Force help me, but you are sweet. I know you were raised in the Temple, but do they really not teach the foundlings anything about… physical things?”

“I _know_ things,” Baze grumbles, a little off-kilter. “I just never—I assumed it was for other people, not me. I have dedicated my life to the Whills, and that is enough. _Was_ enough.”

Chirrut’s amusement drains away. “Forgive me, my friend, I just wasn’t expecting… I only thought that you were timid, and I didn’t want to rush you.”

Baze grunts. “If I am timid, it is only because I’m not sure how to proceed. I’ve never felt this way before and it’s… confusing.”

Chirrut hums and drops his hands to his own knees, palms up, thumb and forefinger kissing together. “And how would you like to proceed?”

“I… proceed? I assumed you would show me, as you’re so knowledgeable about these things.” He feels a stab of jealousy at this thought, for no reason he can discern, and Chirrut shakes his head. 

“I’m not, not really. I mean, a _little_ , yes... but I have _wanted_ many times, and I am not afraid of the feeling. It is natural and right—more natural for some than others, perhaps, but it isn’t an evil thing. In fact, I think it’s quite wonderful.”

“It isn’t in conflict with your faith?”

Chirrut shakes his head. “No. For me, it’s only a continuation of it, in the right context.” He grins. “Or it’s just fun, a way to keep warm during the winter. Depends on who you ask. No one’s way is the only right way.”

“Even the timid way?” Baze asks, just to be difficult. 

“Hush. You’re not timid. You are many things, but not that. You are _thoughtful_ , and though it’s sometimes painful to wait while you consider something, I know in the end it will be worth it. Usually.” He gives an impish smile, wrinkling his nose and baring all his teeth like he does when he’s utterly amused by himself. 

“Hush yourself,” Baze mutters, tweaking his nose. He doesn’t duck away even though he must have known it was coming, and instead leans forward and forward until he’s crawling into Baze’s lap like it’s his favorite place to be. Baze certainly doesn’t mind. He wraps his arms around him without thinking twice, and that is the easiest thing in the world. Kissing him is easy, too, when Chirrut presses his mouth to his cheek and his chin and his lips. Perhaps, Baze thinks, the rest will simply follow.

Holding Chirrut is sometimes like holding a loth-cat, or small, hyperactive child—he rarely sits still, always wriggling or tapping his fingers like a bird in a cage ready to make its break. But right now, he is calm. He shifts closer on Baze’s lap and his warm, heavy weight is like a blanket. Baze deliberately slows his heartbeat and smooths his hands up Chirrut’s thighs. 

“Mmh.” Chirrut breaks the kiss with a wet sound and rests their foreheads together. “Have I ever told you how much I love your hands?”

“Not in so many words,” Baze mutters, the back of his neck flaming pink. He feels a deep, quiescent ache stirring in his groin, half-familiar—it makes him tremble as he pets smooth, warm skin, feeling the subtle flex of Chirrut’s musculature underneath. 

“Well I do. They’re so strong, and so… so.” His throat clicks as he swallows. Baze opens his eyes in time to watch him lick his lips, parted and slick from Baze’s mouth. 

“So…?” he gently prompts. 

Chirrut huffs a self-conscious laugh. “Fishing for compliments?”

“No,” Baze demurs. “Just… making sure I’m doing it right.” 

Chirrut gives a little strangled gasp as Baze slides his palms up further under his nightshirt. “Oh, trust me. I’ll tell you if you’re not doing it right.”

Baze ducks his head and kisses his cheek shyly, full of adoration that he can’t contain. When he rests his forehead on Chirrut’s bony shoulder and looks down between their bodies, he can see the pink smudge of Chirrut’s cockhead against the underside of his shirt; watch it bob as he flexes his thighs under Baze’s touch. He grips higher, harder, turning his thumbs inward to explore the dampness of his inner thighs, and a little wet patch darkens the fabric. 

Baze blinks hard and breathes in, shuddering. He’s hard, too, and though Chirrut isn’t sitting _on_ him, he can still feel the tangential pressure of their close-fitting bodies where his manhood lays thick and wanting against hipbone. He kisses Chirrut’s neck and groans when Chirrut gropes the front of his tunic. 

“Baze,” he gasps. “Baze. Can I…” His fingers have found the little cloth hook-and-knot closures, and they tremble there, waiting for permission. Baze nods, throat too rough to speak, and Chirrut fumbles them open one by one. When he’s got it open halfway, he slips his hands inside and spreads them flat against Baze’s chest. “I can feel your heartbeat,” he whispers, and Baze grips him harder, reflexive, digging fingerprints into Chirrut’s pretty golden hips. “ _Oh_ —”

“Tell me what to do,” Baze begs, “ _please_.”

“I want you to do whatever will make you happy.” Chirrut cups his chin in one hand and uses the fit of him thumb under Baze’s lower lip to guide their mouths together. 

The kiss is needier than before, hotter, open and slick. Baze feels raw and exposed—a part of him wants to pull back, recoil from the intensity of his own desire, but Chirrut is so patient, so gentle and _safe_. He smells warm and familiar, like falling asleep tangled together as boys, and Baze clings to that memory as he slides one trembling hand up Chirrut’s nightshirt to stroke his chest. 

Chirrut makes a sound of appreciation deep in his throat, and Baze can feel the vibration against his palm. He glances up; Chirrut’s eyelashes are like spun silk, casting long shadows on the deep pink of his cheeks. His lips part. “I can feel you thinking, Baze,” he whispers. His eyes slot open just a little, milky blue—Baze remembers a time when they had been strange and mysterious, like the eyes of a fabled seer or a prophet, but now they’re as dear to him as every other part of Chirrut. “Whatever you want, it’s okay.”

“I want to—see you,” Baze admits fumblingly. “Can I…?”

Chirrut nods, and his breathing hitches as he pulls his arms into the body of the nightshirt and yanks it over his head. Underneath he’s slim but well-muscled, his body formed into something close to perfection by the rigors of _zama-shiwo_. But Chirrut is only human, and still young—he falls prey, sometimes, to the temptations and desires of young men, and it shows. Over his taut, muscular stomach is an inviting softness echoed by the baby fat clinging to his cheeks, and Baze strokes his knuckles against the downy hair that trails below his navel, more tempted by the little details of his physique than the glaringly obvious erection stabbing upward from his groin. 

“ _Baze_ ,” he whines, and wriggles, clearly not satisfied with such a light touch. He reaches down, perhaps to grope at Baze’s own desire, but a hand to his wrist stops him. 

“You said,” Baze murmurs roughly, “ _whatever I want._ ”

Chirrut gapes a moment before pulling out the pout. “Don’t you _want_ to touch my penis?”

“Of course I do, love,” Baze soothes. The endearment falls out of him as easy as breathing, and he feels no trace of nervousness afterward, not even when Chirrut gives an adorable little squeak in response. “But I want to kiss you some more, first. Unless…”

“No, that’s fine,” Chirrut hastens to say. “You’re right. Whatever— _ngh. Baze…_ ”

Baze hums against his chest and drags the flat of his tongue along the pebbled skin, prodding one rosy nipple until it’s peaked enough to suckle. Chirrut keens and shoves his fingers into Baze’s short-cropped hair to hold him close. When Chirrut’s moans have turned hard-edged, Baze pulls away and bites gently at the center of his chest. “Was that more like it?”

“You… are a menace, Baze Malbus.” Panting, Chirrut eases his hands down to Baze’s shoulders, where he grips him like his life depends on it. “That was _wonderful_. But I—I really, _really_ want you to touch me, now. _Please_.”

Baze nods unevenly and grips Chirrut hard around the waist for answer. The supple flex of his torso is his only warning, and then Chirrut is pressing forward, pelvis to pelvis, grinding down on Baze’s cock and against his stomach. A satisfied huff escapes him and he tips his head back, lets Baze guide the pace. 

Baze exhales a shudder. He feels hollow on the inside, like everything soft and vulnerable has been scooped out and left to Chirrut’s tender mercies. But he _is_ tender, so gentle in a way that Baze has never really seen before. His friend (his lover) is sharp, quick, brilliant, and sometimes harsh—he doesn’t mean to be, Baze knows, but Chirrut’s filter can be unreliable, dependent on the whims of his coiling mind. Like a serpent lazing in the sun, Chirrut is quick to anger, defensive when he’s in danger of being stepped on. But right now, there’s no trace of those fangs. He is quiescent, nonthreatening, like the velvety undulation of a distant sea. Baze is overcome. 

“Chirrut!” he cries, and he doesn’t bother to mask it. It’s the first time he’s really made a noise in the whole of this last half-hour, and Chirrut lets out a ragged groan in reply, twisting his hips in a faster rhythm. There’s no grace to it, anymore, but Baze doesn’t care. The give and grind of Chirrut on his lap is _so good_ , so simple but better than any half-remembered dream he’s ever jerked awake from, and the gallop of his heart isn’t enough to keep up with him anymore. 

“Your breathing,” Chirrut gasps, “it’s different. It’s—oh, Baze, _Baze_ , I can feel you getting close. I can feel—” He breaks off, tears the words in half as he reaches between them to palm Baze’s cock through his drawers. Baze yelps, bucking up into his hand, and Chirrut’s slapdash grin breathes out against his cheek as he finds the head and massages it through the fabric. “I can feel _you_. Oh…” His thumb rubs incandescent circles at the most sensitive place, and Baze feels slickness well up and dampen the cloth. Chirrut shivers and pinches him lightly, and an electric shock stings his nerves. 

“Ngh…”

“Was that okay?” Chirrut whispers against his sweaty temple. Baze nods and burrows his beet-red face against Chirrut’s neck, too overcome to speak. “Good,” Chirrut croons, “so good, so good for me, my Baze… my handsome, lovely man…”

“Shush,” Baze mumbles. He smears a sloppy kiss to the soft underside of Chirrut’s jaw, and sighs when a clever, long-fingered hand worms its way into his clothes and wraps around his cock. “‘M not. _Lovely_.”

“You _are_ ,” he insists. Chirrut rubs himself against his own forearm and against Baze’s stomach, folded and soft in this position, and gives his sweat-damp girth a little squeeze. “I said so, so it must be true.”

“Ridiculous.” He waits a beat, unsure, and then blurts out, “You can’t even _see_ me.”

“Pfff. _Baze_.” Chirrut leaves one hand down the front of his pants but brings the other to cup Baze’s cheek. His thumb prods gently at the corner of his mouth until Baze smiles, and Chirrut whispers, “Even a blind man can tell when he’s walking in the sun.”

Baze is caught. He slams his eyes shut as they prickle, hot with emotion, and he grapples Chirrut around the waist, needing to hold him close. “You’re ridiculous,” he whispers, but what he really means is _I love you._

“Yeah,” Chirrut says, unfazed—he’s still cupping Baze’s face, so he knows, he _must_ know—and he leans down and kisses him gently. Lower down, his hand strokes firm but slow along his length, and Baze’s forehead crumples as emotion and desire slam together, infesting the yawning cavern of his ribcage with flowering vines. “Baze… all right?”

He nods. Swallows. “I’m all right.” And then, with a soft grunt of surprise and ecstasy, he makes a mess of himself. 

He’s only ever woken up in the midst of it, or after it was over, sticky and cooling and unpleasant, but this is an entirely different beast. Tremors wrack his body as he curls forward into Chirrut’s grip, hotter than flashfire. Everything is magnified and yet obscured, wiped away by the intensity of orgasm, and even when it’s over, leaving him panting and hoarse, with his pants soaked and sticky and his cock half-hard, the shock of it is still ringing in his ears like a firework went off in his face. 

Coming back into his own head is like clawing his way through a sandstorm to a clear sky. And when he manages it, finally, he only has a split second to fumble at Chirrut’s prick under his gaping nightshirt before it seems to thicken, a little, and hot spend bursts against his palm. Chirrut sobs and slumps, dead weight—together they are two half-dead men, grabbing at one another to make up some sort of whole. Baze murmurs nonsense words in his ear, words like _love,_ and _beautiful_ , and rubs his fingers through the slickness until Chirrut makes a muffled sound of protest and pushes his hand away. “Too much,” he slurs. “It’s fine. It’s fine.” 

“I’m sorry,” Baze says anyway. He wipes his hand awkwardly on the hem of Chirrut’s nightshirt and blinks away the fog. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, that he feels… different, now? He’s never believed that _virginity_ was anything more than a made-up word meant to make a select number of people feel bad about themselves (or good, depending on the inflection), but this feels _monumental_. 

“Beloved,” Chirrut sighs. 

“Hmm?”

“You called me _beloved_ , just now.”

“Did I?” He can’t remember exactly what had tumbled out of him in the moment of Chirrut’s orgasm. It still feels not quite real, like a half-remembered dream. But Chirrut’s weight is definitely real, and so is the ache in his behind that comes from sitting on the floor for too long, so he gives him a gentle shove. “Come on then, _beloved_. Come to bed.”

Chirrut chokes off midway through a protest and smiles, dazzling and full of teeth. “Can we push our beds together?” he trills. “Or shall we just snuggle real close?”

Baze groans at the thought of expending all that effort. “Just… the second one. For now.” 

Chirrut rolls off him, apparently satisfied, and pulls his shirt over his head unselfconsciously. His softening prick droops down toward the floor, still smeared with his seed; when he tosses his shirt toward the hamper, it bobs up and down a little, and Baze blushes. He can still see his fingerprints stamped into Chirrut’s hips, rosy, incriminating—Baze wants to kiss each one. But Chirrut has other ideas. He steps smartly into the fresher to clean up, and when he comes back, he helps tug Baze out of his clothes and wipe him clean, too.

“There. Now we shan’t stick together when we wake up in the morning. Trust me—that is _not_ as pleasant an experience as it sounds.”

Baze’s ears flame hot. “ _Chirrut_.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.” He grabs for Baze’s hands, contrite, and then he keeps coming, until he’s standing with his feet in between Baze’s, their bellies and soft cocks brushing. “I don’t mean to—” 

“Shh. It’s fine.” And he means it. “I know I’m not… the first.”

Chirrut gives a soft little half-smile. “But you’re the first I’ve ever loved.”

Baze licks his lips. “Me, too,” he whispers, and when Chirrut grins and drags him into a kiss, oddly chaste in spite of their nakedness, there’s not a single envious bone in his whole body. 


End file.
